BELLA
by Land of magic
Summary: The story follows Bella, who is living in poverty with her tabby cat. She awakes one morning to find something unexplainable. This discovery forces her into hiding in the vast Avery forest, where she discovers a new world. and eventually learns about her destiny.


**BELLA**

The life of me

It smelled like burnt rice mixed with an ammonia based cleaning agent. Disgusting. The stench was enough to make me want to vomit. I placed my hand to the brim of my nostrils and made the ugliest face ever while dumping the can of expired baked beans into the trash. That's it, no more canned dinners for me, Jose`s it is. I turned toward the brown fat cat staring at me wide eyed as if I had just committed the biggest crime of the century. It's amazing though, animals can intimidate the hell out of you. It's as if they know your darkest thought and judge you just by looking at you. I suppose it Kitty's 'aren't I cute eyes' that gets the better of me.

I grabbed my brown sack like sling bag and packet of cigarettes and walked out. I'm not a real smoker. I just carry it around because it's what people like me are supposed to do. We are the jagged jiggery type so it's only proper that we look the part. Anyway, a packet of joints is about $2 these days, money that I just do not have. I know someone that sells weed, I could easily score a 50 gram packet for about $1.50 but my mother would turn in her grave. She didn't raise me up to be a pothead, she raised me up to survive smartly, while still conserving my sanity. The streets here are drug laden, so it's quite easy to literally lose yourself into the underworld. I've seen passers-by get sucked in so deep that there`s almost no way out. They lurk around like daytime zombies waiting for their next feed, grovelling. Jose`s was less than a mile down the road. It was a hot and happening fairly new eatery, proper eastern cuisine, with the most delectably flavoured roasts meats. The owners are a retired sixty something year old couple that sold combat shoes and military attire online for a living. My mother knew them well, they would often give her a pair of socks or clothing from time to time. It's not to say that I could often afford such exquisite meals but I do treat myself now and then and to be honest, the food is not badly priced. It was my third time coming here. I work as a waitress at the Mikes Burgers, a rather dull dinner that reeks of old drunk fat men busting out of their shirts. Luck must have played a huge part in me getting a job there. I had literally walked in while a waitress had quit and walked out. 'When can you start', were the words from Mr Mathews mouth that sent a tinge of relief through me. I suppose the tips are decent compared to my previous employer, the orange Tomato, which was a few blocks away.

I flopped down into one of the wooden chairs next to the oval glassed window. I could see the aged wooden light poles dappled with peeling paint and the dilapidated apartment block with lines of washing on the balcony across the road. The restaurant had a sombre setting and the ceiling was laced with fairy lights that gave it a warm homely feel. The smell of buffet filled the air. I recognised some faces, especially the short plump lady at the bar, Mrs Dandywalter, the owner of my building. She`s hear often enough from what I hear, drowning her sorrows in rum and cola. Her husband had fled with most of her millions that she inherited from her late drug lord father. What a shame, she glances toward me and half smiles and I wave back. A petite waiter with curly brown hair approached the table with a friendly smile on her face and handed me the menu.

''Welcome to Jose`s, I'm Claire and will be taking your order''. I didn't open the menu because I had already knew what I was going to have, the Tuscan chicken with fries and a ranch salad, so that's what I asked her for like I did the last few times.

After fifteen minutes, the food arrived and I gobbled it down. I was starving because I hadn't eaten all day. Mikes Burgers was busy as hell today because if the annual bikers festival. About forty bikers had stopped by for some grease and drinks and I lost track of time. The weather had become grim and the sky was inky black now. A harsh wind gushed past me as I tried to get out the door. It was one of those days where suddenly four seasons was present. Thankfully, a gentleman helped open the door and I walked out. The weather was nasty, cold, bitter, I had to get back quick. It looked like rain was on the forecast. I wrapped my hands around my coat tight and sashed down the street until I could see the American flag swaying in the wind outside my apartment block. Mike, our super was standing by the door, and opened it gracefully for me.

'Thanks Mike', I said and smiled.

He nodded. I don't live in the best neighbourhood, in fact you can call it ghetto style living. I walk up the chipped concrete staircase toward the highest floor, the walls are covered in modern graffiti depicting the street culture. The light above flickers away and the smell of burnt food lingers in the air. I live in a one bedroomed apartment with a tiny kitchen, actually you can't really call a single sink with a two plated stove next to it a kitchen, neither can you call room that's separated into a bedroom and a 'dining room' an apartment. I suppose I just live in a room with a table held together by duct tape that I've called my dining area. You would think that my living situation would send me into some kind of depressed hole but not me, not the smart ass mouthed Tessa. I get this strength from my mother. She kept us alive by making a living as a super chic prostitute or as the old men would say in their day's hooker. She made good money. We had food on the table very day and I even got new cloths now and then.

My father was a hopeless drunk that got mixed up with the wrong crowd. So wrong that they came knocking on our door one day looking for him with the biggest bladed bush knife that I had ever seen. I was six years old at the time and was the last time that I had ever seen him. He fled, abandoning us like we were nothing. My mother says that he ran off with the butcher's wife, Stacy, a real tart at the time. I guess I should state that I did become a prostitute for a night. I was young, starving, and desperate for some money.

On the 29 July 2012, he found me standing on Point Road, dressed in fish net stockings wearing bright red lipstick winking at him from the side walk. He had this boyish smirk on his face as he looked me up from his sparkling new Volvo 19. I was 18 and ready to make some serious dough. Yes, I followed in dear mother olds footsteps.

We did it at the Regent Wilshire hotel in his private penthouse. It wasn't anything like pretty woman, there was no sweet gestures or champagne and strawberries. We got undressed and had sex like wild dogs, it lasted about eight minutes or so. I felt sick afterwards and cried for two whole days. The top side of it was that I made $200. It was enough to last me for few weeks until I found a job.

I unwind the rusted silver knob of the tap. Its chokes out gushes of brown water before flowing clean out the tap. The building is really old and the water works system is not reliable at all. At one time we had to survive without running water for a whole week, it was horrible. The building is the oldest on the block and maintenance is non-existent. I even hear rats scrambling in the celling, the scrambling and scratching gets me all the time.

I squirt out the last drop of aqua scented bubble bath and watch as tiny aromatising bubbles form, creating a blanket of foam over the water. I unzip my pink and white striped uniform dress and grip up my long chocolate brown hair. I catch sight of my reflection in the mirror. Somehow I appear older than I am, my brown eyes have bags below them and skin looks pale, as if the sun has never kissed it, causing my freckles to stand out. I examine my slender figure. I look a bit like my mother except that I don't have her wide hips, which she should have thanked my half Latino grandmother for. I suppose I could have been a model, or a stewardess. My mother always said that I was smart and could be anyone that I wanted. The sky is the limit she said. I jerked myself out of the daze I was in and jumped into the tub. This wasn't the time for regrets, Tessa doesn't do regrets. I'm as bad ass as you can get and won't let life screw me over no matter how hard it gets. I lathered myself and observed my wicked angel tattoo below my navel, I traced my finger along it, remembering the ten shots of tequila that it took to get inked. I was relentless. As I soaked in the steamy soapy pool of relaxation, I could hear the police sirens, so loud and so evident of the crime sickened area that I live in. I'm not particularly scared of anything, I grew up among drug infested gangs that felt nothing to slit a person's throat in broad daylight and then snort in victory afterwards. When I was seven years old, I watched a woman froth to dead outside a barbers shop. It was the scariest scene of my life at the time. I ran back to our block and hid under the covers. I never told my mother, I suppose I learnt to cope with the dangers that lurked among me and survive to the best that I knew how too.

My bed is about as old as me. I have shared it with my mother and inherited it when she died. I've gotten used to the pokey springs that jutted through and my back may have become accustomed to the lumpy sponges beneath. We didn't have much growing up, most of the furniture was taken away by loan sharks, who my mother owed a ton of money to. I got home one day and found everything gone, except the bed. Marty, an old friend of my mothers, gave me the table, and two plate stove. He did it out of pity, poor little girl all on her own he must have thought. When I think of my living situation, I see it as comfortable. Comfortable in that have the bare necessities which is food on the table and a bed to sleep on. I mostly live on canned food and bread, it lasts me through the month. If you were to ask me to describe the taste of ice cream or chocolate, I would be dumbfounded. I have only ever had it about three times in my life, twice on my birthday and once when I stole chocolate from a sweet store at aged nine. Since then I haven't been fond of them as I never quite developed actual cravings. Sometimes, Mr Mathews lets me have one of the left over burgers from an abandoned order.

Life is tough here. You have to fend for yourself and I have learned to trust no one. Everyone here has ulterior motives, especially when they are on the brink of hopelessness, that's when the dark side sets in. My mother was all I had. She was everything, my whole world. No siblings, no father (well not present), no known family and no real friends. I know a couple of girls that parade on the street down the road, real professional prostitutes, the type that you don't mess with, unless you want a sore beating or claws being dug into your head while you hair is being pulled out. I can't really call them my friends, maybe acquaintances, a friendly greet now and then. The one girl, Amelia, seems to like me. She isn't as outspoken as the others but appears kinder, warmer, and once gave me a lemon bar.

I lock the door and pull down the tangled blinds so that the pink stream of light coming from the shop sign next door is blocked off. The alarm clock says 21:54 pm, seven hours till my ten hour shift starts. The sirens haven't stopped, its unusually long tonight. They usually start just before dark when everyone has locked up for the day and then end around 8pm or so. It's the night thieves trying to make off that cause all the commotion. I flip my blanket off and head toward the window to peek through the blinds. I can't see much through the tall pine trees hovering over the street, their leaves rustling. I hear people, muffled voices but can't tell what they're saying. I suppose there's a crime that's taken place somewhere nearby. Just then I hear a patter patter sound, rain drops hitting against the tinned roof. This means disaster about to happen. I have been begging the super to have a look at the leak in my roof for over two months now. I dash into the kitchen and grab the large green plastic dish from under the sink. I place it somewhere near the centre of my bedroom, directly in line with the brown stained patch above. I couldn't help but notice the prominent bulges and tiny bubbles that stuck out due to the constant dampness, _please don't collapse, not now_. Hopefully it doesn't rain all night or else I may wake up to a flooded room, or worse, a roofless apartment. That's typically the last thing that I need right now.

I decide to call it a night and hop back into bed. Whatever it is, it should quieten down by the morning. Anyway when I sleep, nothing can really wake me up, I literally sleep as though I'm dead. It's to blame for me being late on most mornings, hence I have my alarm clock set on the highest volume. My head is snug in my pillow and I hear the rhythmical pat-pat sound of the leaking water. My eyes are heavy and I drift into thick blackness, the sounds of the street drama fading away, my body feels as relaxed as it can be.


End file.
